Abstract
A special category of stakeholders is that of the key suppliers, or co-makers. The bulk of the service transactions in this world is B2B (Business-to-Business). Moreover, every B2C (Business-to-Consumer) company provides services in co-production with a range of suppliers. In services, often, the consumers will be directly affected by the performance of these suppliers, very different from manufacturing. In service supply chains, the supplier, the service provider, and the customer effectively form a service triad. This chapter looks at this phenomenon through the case of a European port authority and its IT outsourcing partner. A winner’s curse outsourcing contract and serious maritime incidents led to a vicious relationship spiral. Through a collaborative service design process, parties tried to reverse this spiral into a virtuous one.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Akkermans, H. A., & van Helden, K. (2002). Virtuous and vicious cycles in ERP implementation: A case study of interrelations between critical success factors. European Journal of Information Systems, 11(1), 35–46.
Akkermans, H., Bogerd, P., & van Doremalen, J. (2004). Travail, transparency and trust: A case study of computer-supported collaborative supply chain planning in high-tech electronics. European Journal of Operations Research, 53(2), 445–456.
Autry, C. W., & Golicic, S. L. (2010). Evaluating buyer–supplier relationship–performance spirals: A longitudinal study. Journal of Operations Management, 28, 87–100.
Choi, T. Y., & Wu, Z. (2009). Taking the leap from dyads to triads: Buyer–supplier relationships in supply networks. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 15(4), 263–266.
Holmstrom, B., & Milgrom, P. (1991). Multi-task principal-agent analyses: Incentive contracts, asset ownership and job design. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 7(Special Issue), 24–52.
Kern, T., Willcocks, L. P., & van Heck, E. (2002). The winner’s curse in IT outsourcing: Strategies for avoiding relational trauma. California Management Review, 44(2), 47–69.
Lacity, M. C., Khan, S. A., & Willcocks, L. P. (2009). A review of the IT outsourcing literature: Insights for practice. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 18(3), 130–146.
Parker, G. G., & Anderson, E. G. (2002). From buyer to integrator: The transformation of the supply-chain manager in the vertically disintegrating firm. Production and Operations Management, 11(1), 75–91.
Pieters, A. J. H. M., van Oirschot, C., & Akkermans, H. A. (2010). No cure for all evils: Dutch obstetric care and limits to the applicability of the focused factory concept in health care. International Journal of Operations and Production Management., 30(11), 1112–1139.
Roberts, J. (2004). The modern firm. Organizational design for performance and growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sampson, S. E. (2000). Customer-supplier duality and bi-directional supply chains in service organizations. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 11(4), 348–364.
Skinner, W. (1974). The focused factory. Harvard Business Review, 52(3), 113–121.
Wynstra, F., Spring, M., & Schoenherr, T. (2015). Service triads: A research agenda for buyer–supplier–customer triads in business services. Journal of Operations Management, 35, 1–20.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Akkermans, H. (2018). Interacting with Key Suppliers: Relationship Spirals . In: Service Operations Dynamics. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72017-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72017-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72016-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72017-3
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)